Water and Sewerage Services: Competition (Hansard, 28 January 1997)

The Minister of State, Department of the Environment (Earl Ferrers)

In answer to a Question from the honourable Member for Taunton on 1st April 1996, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Environment set out a number of proposals for 91WA extending competition in water and sewerage services in England and Wales. These would:

Introduce common carriage arrangements to allow companies to use an existing supplier's pipe network to provide individual customers with a choice of water supply.

Introduce similar provisions for sewerage services.

Extend the scope of inset arrangements (under which a new water or waste water undertaker can be appointed in respect of an area within an existing undertaker's area of appointment) to allow appointments to be for limited periods and in respect of co-located premises.

Remove restrictions on cross border supply to enable water undertakers to supply water for non-domestic purposes to customers in another undertaker's area.

Remove the water undertaker's monopoly on making connections to the water main.

My right honourable friend also announced the issue of a consultation paper in which he and my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Wales sought views on these proposals.

92WA

Responses to the consultation paper were received from the water industry, commercial and industrial users, representative bodies, professional institutions and from individual customers. They showed a broad measure of support for all our proposals and made a number of useful points about the way in which they could be put into operation. In the light of the positive response, it is our intention to proceed with these proposals with a view to bringing forward legislation in the next Parliament.

In developing this legislation we shall seek to provide a basis for competition both in waste water and clean water services, and to ensure that water quality continues to be safeguarded and that the charging regime continues to be fair and non-discriminatory. We also intend to go further than our original proposals by following up suggestions made during consultation for extending the scope of common carriage and inset appointments to smaller users. We will look again to see whether a lower limit, perhaps in the 100 to 200 megalitre range, would be practicable and appropriate.

Meanwhile we would urge users to take full advantage of those provisions for competition which already exist, in particular those which allow large users to seek water supplies from other sources and which allow flexibility in the provision of sewerage services.